Absolute? God only knows, I'm tired of thinking about it.

Rob Bell got to me again. In this random moment of complete boredom and self-loathing, I picked up "Velvet Elvis" again last night and read this:

Once again, the springs [doctrines] aren't God. They have emerged over time as
people have discussed and studied and experieinced and reflected on their
growing understanding of who God is. Our words aren't
absolutes. Only God is absolute, and God has no intention of sharing
this absoluteness with anything, especially words people have come up with to
talk about him. This is something people have struggled with since the
beginning: how to talk about God when God is bigger than our words, our brains, our worldviews, and our imaginations.

I've mentioned before that I'm in capstone seminar--this class set up for seniors to process their Huntington experience and the faith-based learning they've paid nearly $100,000 for. Well right now we are reading this book called "The Myth of Certainty" and it is all about what it looks like to be a reflective Christian, or at least, the dilemma one runs into when trying to be reflective. This has occupied a lot of my free thought time, especially one sentence the author wrote. He said, in effect, that there is no absolute truth, no certainty, that we can attain about anything.

This statement made me want to throw the book against a wall, then I realized that it is just a book and that this is only one man's idea. No absolute truth? That flies in the face of most of what I've learned as I've come into my faith. Most of what I've been taught in HU ministry classes, for sure. If certainty is really a myth, how can I be certain I'm right? And to echo that statement--although I would never say it out loud, but I caught myself thinking it--how can I know that everyone else is wrong?

Then I realized what my issue was. Me. I want to be right. Self-assurance is my goal in becoming a "reflective" Christian. Why is it so important to keep convincing myself when I've already bought into it all? "Bought in" might be a harsh phrase to describe what I mean, which is that I've surrendured my life to Christ because I believe he's more than just a moral man that belongs in the history books. He is my Savior, my King who has a better way for me.

And then I got it. In a way that made me want to lock myself away for fear of all the other hidden agendas I probably have under my belt, hidden so well I'm not even aware of them. I want to be right. I want to win. Not only do I want to be right about God, but I want my opponents--anyone who DARES feel a different kind of certainty about God, anyone with another point of view--to be WRONG. When its time for this world to go by the wayside, I want God to split everyone up into three categories. A wrong group, a right group, and an "I was too busy to care" group. And I want to be in that right group. Right, right, right... I want to be the one who has it all figured out.

I'm sorry for being that girl.

Now I know that I've got it all wrong. My words, my politics, my worldviews, my feeble knowledge, my bloated ego could never wrap my mind around the nature of God. That doesn't mean that He isn't worth pursuing, because, what an amazing life that would be... But I am not right about him. I'm just as wrong as the self-proclaimed atheist who whole-heartedly believes that we're on our own in this vast place in the universe. Because if I can't be right about it all, I'm wrong. And I believe that God has revealed fragmented, molecule-sized parts of his absoluteness with me, but it's broken knowledge without the whole picture.

There is a myth out there called certainty. God is bigger than my words and ideas about him. I'm not right and you're not wrong... but we get to pursue the truth together at least. That's a little comforting. Ben Lee says it in his own amazingly corny way in the song that I love right now:

Woke up this morning
i suddenly realized
we're all in this together
i started smiling
cause you were smiling
and we're all in this together
I'm made of atoms
you're made of atoms
and we're all in this together
and long division
just doesnt matter
cause we're all in this together

Are you kidding me... attractive?

I'm a communication major, and I just want to say that I love the First Amendment almost as much as I love my mother. Not quite, but still. I love that I can come up with whatever I want, off the top of my head, and I can say it out loud. Better yet, I can write it down. And in today's world, I can write it down on a medium like this nifty blog and it can be accessed by whoever, whenever. And no one can control it, no one has a say in what I want to say. Which is why, right now, I hate the First Amendment. Because anyone in the world can say whatever they want to and anyone can read it. I know, I know. I'm a contradiction, which is nothing new for me. Here's the story.

So there's this guy on campus. And he's discovered the array of opportunities that Facebook has for him to post his thoughts. In particular, his thoughts on the women of this campus. The ratio at good 'ol HU is a beautiful 2 to 1, something I tend to enjoy because I'm in a period of my life where I revel in a day where I don't have to interact with a male. His thoughts, which didn't offend me until he turned it into a written manifesto, are that even though there are more girls than guys here, guys are having to "settle" if they want to be in a relationship here. I'll quote his exact words:

Since the campus has very little outside exposure most of the guys look on
campus for a lady friend. Now since there are few extremely attractive girls the
guys are left with what they can find. So why is this good news for the ladies
in the middle range? Simple, the guys settle. So take heart ladies, for at HU
you can get the guy who is out of your league! It is a beautiful thing!

Needless to say, he recieved over 60 comments on his little note. From some very angry ladies who felt like they were being judged like USDA grades of meat, and even from some guys who thought that this note was just not cool. And there were supporters of his statements, too. I can't for the life of me relate to a woman's mentality that a statement like this is funny, let alone appropriate for a guy who is a paid leader on campus. This note brought out the worst in people, to be sure, either through their anger or their approval of the comments.

But I could really care less. Until he wrote another note clarifying what he meant by the word "attractive":

To be more clear, my observation is simply this, there are less quality
attractive guys(meaning more than just looks) than quality attractive
girls(again more than just looks). I have noticed that a lot of the girls who
look good have had less than good personalities, and I have met some really
unattractive girls who have amazing personalities, very few that I have met had
both. That is where the settling comes in.

Now I'm just pissed off. I can handle people who are ready to judge appearance because frankly, there is a standard aesthetic in this world that we all try to live up to. Its this huge, ugly monster who stands next to every girl (or guy, I guess) looking into a mirror and says "that's just not quite good enough." I've battled that monster every day. Some days I win, and others I don't. But there is a standard that is commonly accepted to judge the outside of a person.

But when someone has the nerve to begin judging the complex insides of a person the same way they would a beauty contest, I'm offended beyond words. I cannot change, at least to a strong degree, how I look. But my heart, my personality, the stuff going on in my mind--that is something God and I have been creating together for a long time. Its been hard and some days I think it would be easier to let someone else... (maybe a guy like the note writer) to tell me what he's looking for in a friend/romantic partner so I can begin to adapt myself to meet his expectations. But I'm me and I love it. I'll be honest, most days I'm astounded that any one person could find worth in me at all, but I really have found that for myself. And I don't fit into this creative/artsy/out-of-the-box/"look at me, I'm so original" standard that this guy is probably looking for when he's talking about "attractive" girls. But the thing about people who are into originality, is that it becomes this standard thing... which defeats the entire purpose. My best friend told me she really thinks it is all about appearance with people like that, and I tend to agree.

If this is the way I feel from a note like this, someone who is at least midly self assured and comfortable with herself, how are other girls handling crap like this? This is a case where I feel like I want to protect people from it somehow... because I know they are going to take something like this the wrong way and it will do damage.

I really wish he had just been talking about the lack of "hot girls" on campus, and how the poor men have to settle if they want a girlfriend. I can't talk about it anymore, it just makes me so sad.